Tom Morello gets eclectic partners for solo album

NEW YORK If you listen closely to Tom Morello’s new album, you’ll hear a 24year-old guitar riff. He’s been patiently waiting since the mid-1990s to finally unleash it.

The song “Vigilante Nocturno” contains a riff he wrote during recording sessions for Rage Against the Machine’s “Evil Empire” but never found its way into a song. So it went into Morello’s stockpile.

“It didn’t find footing then, but I always kept that one in my back pocket. Like, ‘That is a badass riff and one day it’s going to tear people apart,’” he said.

That day is now with the release of “The Atlas Underground,” which finds Morello teaming up with an eclectic collection of artists he hopes will “challenge the conventions of rock ‘n’ roll and electronic music and hip hop and punk.”

Morello, who is listed among the 100 greatest guitarists by Rolling Stone magazine, has collaborated with folkie Marcus Mumford, alt-rock darlings Portugal. The Man, guitar god Gary Clark Jr., the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and GZA, rapper Big Boi and the hypnotic DJ Bassnectar, among others.

“The album features artists of diverse genres, ethnicities, ages and genders and that, in itself, is a statement of these divisive times,” said Morello. “The idea was to forge a sonic conspiracy” and “make a new genre of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Morello, 54, is known for his shredding chops — he was in Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and Prophets of Rage — but he stretched sonically, too. Even into electronic dance music.